BIG fought hard at ESL One Belo Horizonte, but their tournament lives were cut short right before the playoffs.
The German-majority team placed third in the group at the $200,000 Brazilian event, losing to Liquid twice and winning against home team Nao Tem Como. With UK newcomer Owen “smooya” Butterfield helping out in the fragging department as the main AWPer, BIG are looking forward to their next big event, ESL One Cologne, where they’ll be on home turf among a number of the world’s best teams.
Related: SK and Liquid survive elimination at ESL One Belo Horizonte
Dot Esports sat down with BIG in-game leader Fatih “Gob b” Dayik a day after his team was eliminated from ESL One Belo Horizonte.
You guys played NTC and eliminated them. What do you think went right against them in that match, especially in that Dust II game?
Gob b: I think they’re also a new team like us. They also make mistakes like we did in the first map [Train]. I think we had a better map pool to be honest, and we’re really confident going into the third map, Dust II. We just needed to win Overpass [map two]. We were a little bit lucky and a little bit good clutches from our side, and that’s what went good for us.
NTC said you played them while you were boot camping in Germany and they crushed you on Dust II. Do remember if that’s right?
I think we played against them on Dust II. I don’t think they crushed us if I remember right. But to be honest, we are really confident on Dust II. I think we’re not afraid to play anyone on Dust II. So if I remember correct, we were also talking before the Dust II game [saying], “hey remember how they play.” Maybe we learned something from that—that we were a little bit lucky like I said. So I don’t know. I can’t really remember 100 percent.
Despite your ups and downs and considering you’re participating in more international tournaments, what do you think you still have to improve with this team?
For sure, we need more experience on stage. We made a lot of mistakes against Liquid. We failed a lot of smokes that we shouldn’t have failed. So, overall I think experience. We will change our playstyle a little bit for upcoming tournaments. We just need to learn and get the experience we need.
How has the transition been for smooya in your lineup? How has it been for him to adapt to your playstyle and vice versa?
At the moment, it’s him more adapting to us. Hopefully in the future we can adapt to him. He really knows how to play his own style… So it’s the problem with a new team to find our groove first. And I think it’ll take big tournaments to get to that groove. And after that we’ll be more comfortable playing on stage.
What are your short-term plans and main goals for the team right now?
Near future, the most important thing is ESL Cologne. After that, we have a break. So we have like nine days. When we come back [from Brazil], we’ll go through all our stuff, what we learned from this tournament, and hopefully do better in Cologne. And after that, we’ll concentrate on the Major. Yeah this is kinda like the next two months for us to be honest. [We want to] have a good Cologne hopefully and then have a break.
